"Why would someone go to a Synagogue? The Jewish habit of answering questions is not well. Far easier to go to someone openly offering to talk about all things Jewish in a museum dedicated to it that a place of worship where you have no idea if you will be welcome."
1. If that's really the case, why not have a group of Jews there to act as "tour guides," if you will, instead of having one sit behind a glass case like a--I'll say it again--circus attraction? I mean, that's literally imposing another barrier (albeit a glass one) between the person asking the question and the one giving the answer. "That's the point of this ART exhibit!" shouts someone in the stands, to which I reply that you can't have it both ways...either this is a genuine attempt to answer questions about Jews, in which case depicting them as actual human beings free of a glass cage and, again, maybe acting as tour guides would seem better than their being put on display like the last of the dodos or something, or else it's strictly art with none of that rhetoric about answering generational questions...in which case, OK, fine, I guess the most I can say is I think that's a rather lazy bit of art, not much more I can say about a piece of art besides "I don't like it" and why...
2. I somehow don't get the feeling they'd be that unwelcome...? For as much vitriol as I have against the ideologies, higher-ups, practices and so on of religious groups, on the whole, the average religious person (outliers like the Westboro Baptist Church and hate groups aside, obviously) is, I think, reasonably open to questions about their faith and identity, so long as the questioneer is polite and phrases their questions politely.
Certainly most of the religious folks here are like that...I can't imagine Draugnar or Crazy Anglican finding some curious Jews or Muslims (or even Atheists) at the door of their church and saying "Get lost, you're not wanted here!"
So I don't necessarily buy that they would worry if they were welcome or not. I suppose the obvious response is "Yes, but it's Germany, that's the whole point, isn't it? It's more sensitive there?" to which I'd have to again think that there'd at least be SOME Jews there willing to talk in a setting besides a glass cage...I also fail to see how the glass cage makes things LESS sensitive (indeed, if this is supposed to be provocative art, it'd seem designed to make the situation even more uncomfortable and tense.)
"A great error made by Jews of the past in many parts of Europe was to isolate themselves from the wider community."
While there's some merit to that, I'm going to have to call a partial BS on that, as 1. It wasn't as if the Jews were always isolated by CHOICE, and so 2. By the time there might have been any semblance of choice...well, if you've been systematically persecuted on and off over the centuries by those other to yourself and you were forced into this ghetto (or wherever) and have remained isolated for a good long period of time...chances are you're not going to be all too keen on re-integrating into the larger society that's smacked you down again and again...you're at the least going to be rather hesitant about doing so, and rather understandably so.
"The box may be unusual, but it can do little harm and perhaps a lot of good."
I don't think it does too much good, as it sets up Jews as exactly what you just said you don't think they should be set up as--that is, something sideshow-esque or otherwise mysterious that not a lot of people know about--and instead of having Jewish tour guides a la The Holocaust Museum, it makes Jews into a carnival show...which I'd argue dehumanizes them more than it truly demystifies them.
Speaking of conspiracy theories...
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